Tornado Alley (PROG)

[fuagf]

Reversal of Direction of Tornado

Name: Kassey
Status: N/A
Age: N/A
Location: N/A
Country: N/A
Date: N/A

Question: I want to know if a tornado can be on the ground and change directions to the opposite direction it started off going? If it is going NE can it change and go SW, while on the ground?

Replies: Kassey,

A tornado may be located at the center of a thunderstorm or it may form towards the outside of the storm.

In the first case the track of the storm will be the same as the thunderstorm and therefore fairly straight; some movement to one side or the other of the general direction of the storm is common. Generally these tornados are the largest and most destructive.

However, in the second case, the tornado moves around the edge of the thunderstorm as the thunderstorm rotates and can form spirals (as seen from damage patterns on the ground); therefore the tornado can change direction during its lifetime, sometimes making several loops, depending on how long it lasts and exactly where it's located under the thunderstorm. So, it could be traveling to the NE and then later to the SW, although it is still being carried forward with the thunderstorm that produced it.

David R. Cook
Meteorologist
Climate Research Section
Environmental Science Division
Argonne National Laboratory

The trajectory of a tornado is very unpredictable. They are very non-equilibrium conditions of the atmosphere. They can go left/right, forward/backward, up/down in all combinations.

Vince Calder

You may want to make an analogy of a tornado with a spinning top on a smooth, hard surface. The path is not always predictable.

Steve Sample

http://www.newton.dep.anl.gov/askasci/wea00/wea00328.htm

Aside: .. grin ..

Attack on Pearl Harbor

The attack on Pearl Harbor (called Hawaii Operation or Operation AI by the Japanese Imperial General Headquarters (Operation Z in planning)and the Battle of Pearl Harbor) was a surprise military strike conducted by the Imperial Japanese Navy against the United States naval base at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, on the morning of December 7, 1941 (December 8 in Japan). The attack was intended as a preventive action in order to keep the U.S. Pacific Fleet from interfering with military actions the Empire of Japan was planning in Southeast Asia against overseas territories of the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, and the United States.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Attack_on_Pearl_Harbor

Pearl Harbor conspiracy theory

The Pearl Harbor conspiracy theory states that Franklin Delano Roosevelt had foreknowledge of the attack on Pearl Harbor and deliberately allowed the naval station to be attacked. No scholarly historical research supports the theory (though much pseudo-scholarship does). This is similar to the idea of a false flag operation in motive, but the attack is orchestrated by a real enemy and just allowed to happen.

These are the points generally brought up by the Pearl Harbor theorists:
http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Pearl_Harbor_conspiracy_theory